Flanders and Swann

Flanders and Swann
Flanders (left) and Swann in 1966
Background information
Origin	Westminster School
Genres	Comedic songs
Years active	1956–1967
Members	Michael Flanders Donald Swann

Flanders and Swann were a British comedy duo. Actor and singer Michael Flanders (1922–1975) and composer, pianist, and lyricist Donald Swann (1923–1994) collaborated in writing and performing comic songs. They first worked together at a school revue in 1939 and eventually wrote over a hundred comic songs together.

Between 1956 and 1967, Flanders and Swann performed some of their songs, interspersed with comic monologues, in their long-running two-man revues At the Drop of a Hat and At the Drop of Another Hat, which they toured in Britain and abroad. Both revues were recorded in concert and the duo also made several studio-based recordings.

Flanders and Swann both attended Westminster School (where in July and August 1940 they staged a revue called Go To It) and Christ Church, Oxford, two institutions linked by ancient tradition. The pair went their separate ways during World War II, but a chance meeting in 1948 led to a musical partnership writing songs and light opera, Flanders providing the words and Swann composing the music. Their songs have been sung by performers such as Ian Wallace and Joyce Grenfell.

In December 1956, Flanders and Swann hired the New Lindsey Theatre, Notting Hill, to perform their own two-man revue At the Drop of a Hat, which opened on New Year's Eve. Flanders sang a selection of the songs that they had written, interspersed with comic monologues, accompanied by Swann on the piano. An unusual feature of their act was that, because of Flanders' having contracted poliomyelitis in 1943, both men remained seated for their shows: Swann behind his piano and Flanders in a wheelchair. The show was successful and transferred the next month to the Fortune Theatre, where it ran for over two years, before touring in the UK, the United States, Canada and Switzerland.